Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Samantha Bee, and Kristen Schaal, with the help of material provided during two years of presidential election battles, have done the impossible—they've proved that gender inequity doesn't have to make you angry or strident or humorless. Sometimes it makes you guffaw. For those of you who recall second-wave feminism, a notoriously unfunny movement, the idea of cracking up at feminist jokes is, frankly, inconceivable. But when political journalists began bashing Hillary Clinton for everything from her ambition to her "cackle," Fey and Poehler taught us that Bitch is the New Black, invited "the media to grow a pair," and made a hit comedy about single women having babies (Baby Mama). The Daily Show's Bee was early on this tip; in 2007, she took National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy blouse shopping to chat about whether America was ready for a woman president and wondered about a female newscaster who wore a skirt that "barely cover[ed] her Sunni Triangle" in a segment on NILFs (News I'd Like to F@#K). Last year, her colleague Schaal did an on-air solidarity striptease, peeling off a piece of clothing for every sexist remark made by the media about Clinton. Even secondwave veterans Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda took some riotous turns at Stephen Colbert's table...and on his lap.

How did Bee and Schaal get so much airtime for feminist humor on the boys'-clubby Daily Show? "There are a lot of vaginas around here," Bee says. "We make our presence known."